Into the Darkness
by Kayleigh Megan
Summary: It's just a one-shot about Rachel and how she tells her kids and Miles what happened when Monroe held her. Talk about rape and abuse, nothing explicit. Just talk. A bonding moment between mother and daughter.


**It's just a one-shot, Rachel telling everyone what happened and a little bonding between Rachel and Charlie. I've been watching _Revolution_ for the past couple of days and this came to me while I should've been asleep, and it didn't leave me until I wrote it. This is right after they got out of Philly and found a place to be safe for the moment from Monroe. **

**I hope it's okay...and I hope it makes sense. Enjoy :) **

* * *

It was one of the hardest things that she'd ever had to do, but she looked at him and smiled. It wasn't something that she had been able to do for a while, and now that she was free again she wasn't afraid anymore.

She wasn't afraid to cry, or to smile or to laugh.

Not with her daughter there, because her daughter needed her to show something.

And not with her son there, because he had gone through hell and back just because Sebastian had thought to use him against her.

She had been waiting, waiting for the best time to tell Charlie what had happened while Bass Monroe had held her, but she was afraid. Afraid of how her little girl would react, when she heard the things that her mother had done to keep the power off.

"Do you remember that...that moment when you left mom?"

The words cut through her thoughts and Rachel looked up over the fire that was burning, and stared at her daughter. They'd been sitting close to the fire because of the cold nights, and Rachel would have nothing more than to sit closer to her daughter.

Charlie though...she didn't want her mother very close. They had just gotten back from Philadelphia, and Rachel knew that all that Charlie had wanted was her brother, Danny. Rachel looked at Danny then, and smiled at her little boy.

Only he wasn't little anymore. He had grown up to be a fine man, a man who had gone through hell and back just because of her.

And he smiled back at her, the love in his eyes enough for her to go on. To go on until her daughter could trust her again, and could love her again.

"I remember."

She looked back at Charlie again and saw the pain in her eyes. She winced. She wished she could do something, anything to get her little girl to be happy and pain free again.

"Dad and you...you told us you'd be back in a couple of months but you never came back...and then the word came that you'd been killed. I thought...we all thought you were dead."

Charlie looked as if she was gearing up for a fight, but Rachel simply nodded and looked down at her hands. She didn't want to fight her daughter, not anything would make her want that.

"I know." It was all she could say without tearing up, and she'd learned that tears wouldn't get you anywhere.

"Mom...are you okay?"

"Yes baby I'm fine," she told Danny, a soft smile playing around her lips. She knew Charlie had done a good job raising Danny, and she wished to praise her daughter. Danny had been safe for a long time because of Charlie.

The fact that Miles and Danny were there stopped her. She knew that Charlie wouldn't like to be praised. She didn't care for that.

"So what happened to you Danny boy?"

Miles' voice cut through the silence, and Danny started telling them what had happened.

"They took me to Philadelphia. Tom Neville took me to Philadelphia and he made sure that I couldn't escape...even though I tried a couple of times. Between him and the guards...I couldn't escape. Some guy...he beat me because I'd killed his best friend when his best friend shot my...shot dad."

"Who?"

"I don't remember his name," Danny said, watching the fire. "Neville tricked me the second time that I tried to escape, he was trapped under some rubble and...well, he got me to help him get out and then he took me with him again, even fought me." Danny looked at Rachel and smiled.

Rachel looked down at her hands, noticing the dryness of her skin and the tightness in her body as her son told them what had happened. She knew it wasn't all, she knew that Tom Neville had hurt him beyond belief and that it was all her fault.

"It's all my fault that you got hurt Danny, and I'm so sorry for it."

"Ah come on Rachel, you know it wasn't your fault."

"No, Miles. It _is _my fault, because I didn't tell the bastard what he wanted to know and when he realized that hurting me wasn't going to do the trick, he brought my son in," she gritted her teeth against the pain of losing her husband, the pain of having done all that hurt to her son. She wished she could go back in time and do it all, differently this time.

"Mom...we didn't even know you were alive. And he came for dad, he wanted him to help turn on the power again," Danny said, looking at her with that newly found maturity. "Neville told me so...he told me that Monroe was looking for a way and that dad knew...and he's looking for Miles because he's sure that dad told him some of that stuff..."

"But he never did," Miles said, a grimace on his face.

"There are only a couple of people who know about the power...about why it turned off and how it can be turned back on." Rachel looked around, and saw the frowns on her children's faces. It hurt to see that they'd had to grow up so fast, but she also knew in a world like this nothing, nobody, could've stopped that from happening. "Your dad and I...we worked together on this. We know how it can be turned back on." She swallowed, remembering. "I'm the only person now who knows how to turn it back on."

"Why haven't you turned it back on then?" Danny asked. Rachel blinked and shook her head. She didn't want to say anything about that. She didn't want him to know he was the reason she hadn't turned it back on yet.

"That's...it's complicated and for now that's not what is important. What is important is that Bass has power, and he can hurt us...way worse than what has happened until now."

"Mom...what did he do to you?"

The question came from Danny, like she knew it would, and she sighed. She had promised herself that she would tell them what had happened when they asked for it, when they asked the right questions, and here was one of them.

Aaron came to join them, his heart seemed heavy.

"For now we're safe...for now we have the element of darkness, which is good," he said, softly.

"Mom?"

"Danny..."

"Mom you need...you need to tell us what he did to you."

"After I left. Rachel, after I left...I thought you were dead, like I told you...I saw your body."

"Yes you told me," Rachel still couldn't forgive Miles for what happened, especially for what she was about to tell them, but she knew it was needed. She knew that she needed to tell everyone what happened so that they knew what kind of person they were dealing with.

"Mom, tell us," Charlie urged.

"Miles...after you left he...he put me in a room. It was a big room where I had the space to walk around and...where I had a bed the size of the cell you'd put me in." She closed her eyes, and saw the room in front of her as clear as she could see the fire. The big bed with the soft mattress and the soft bedding, the warmth of the fireplace and the glow of light seeping through the curtains. "I never thought that anything would happen to me after that. He seemed to have lost interest in me."

"But he didn't," Danny whispered.

"No he didn't. He...he came into the room every day, asked me the only question...how to turn the power back on." She took a deep breath before she continued. "It went on for weeks. Months, maybe. I don't know because after a little while, he took away the light. I got candles...but that was all of what I got. The longer I didn't answer his questions, the more he took away from me until all I had was a dark, cold room. I had a thin blanket to keep me warm and the mattress...well, he changed that for a hard, springy one."

"But you never said anything, because you never..."

"Never. I didn't want him to have the power, the only power in the world. He didn't deserve it...he doesn't."

"So what next? After he took away all the comfort, what happened next?" Miles asked her, always overlooking the emotional and asking for the facts, asking for whatever he needed to know.

"It took him a moment. He thought that by having me in that room was better than a cell where I didn't have anything other than a small cot to sleep on...but he knew that by giving me luxury, and then taking it away, would have me wonder what he wanted next." For a moment she was silent as she thought back on that time in her life. "For a while that was all but then he started touching me. He started asking me about the warmth...he could keep me warm he said," she closed her eyes and she knew it was a mistake because she could see him, clearly, touching her and kissing her neck.

"Mom..."

"At first I thought I could handle it, but then he started being...forceful. He started hurting me just to get the information but he made a mistake by raping me, because that just...it made me not want to talk to him even more. He beat me around, raped me some more and he thought that that would do the trick."

"But it never did though," Miles muttered. He looked at Rachel, and Rachel opened her eyes and stared at him.

"No. No matter what he did, no matter what he had his guards do, I _never_ told him anything. I'd rather die, than tell him what he wanted to know."

"But then he told you Danny was coming right?"

"Yes, Charlie. He told me Danny was coming after years of that," she shook her head. "I never thought that he would stoop so low as to get my son...or my daughter...and threaten me to tell him with my kids."

"The rest is history...we came and got Danny...and found you," Charlie said, her voice showing signs of hurt over her mother's pain, but her face not showing a single emotion. For a moment Rachel was hurt, but then pride took over. Her daughter was a strong woman.

"Yes..." Danny looked at his mother with tears in his eyes and Rachel tensed.

"I..." Rachel stood and turned around, her head hurting and her heart breaking. She shouldn't have told them. They were still to young to know what had happened and she shouldn't have told them.

She walked over to the tent, the only tent they had, and slid in. Nobody was using it and she needed a moment alone, a moment where she didn't see the people who had just listened to her tell what had happened to her.

* * *

Charlie watched as her mother slid into the tent and sighed. She turned her head and stared at the fire for a while, thinking back on everything that had happened.

She'd lost her father, and Danny had been taken, and all she could do was go after him. Even though she knew she was still way to young to fight off Monroe or his men. She'd been stupid, but she'd had Miles. Miles had kept her safe.

Danny broke the silence.

"She had to go through hell, though hell and back just to keep everyone safe. She was raped, beaten, and manipulated. We all sit here thinking we had it bad, but look at what she went through for us," Danny said to Charlie. Charlie simply nodded and looked at him for a moment before going back to staring into the fire, her heart breaking for her mother.

"She went through all that because of me. When I left...I heard that...I thought she was dead," Miles said. He looked from Danny to Charlie and back. Then he turned his gaze toward the tent and sighed. "Bass told me he would hurt her if I left, but I thought she was dead."

"What did you do to her Miles?" Charlie asked. It was the first thing out of her mouth and her voice sounded weird in her own ears. "Did you hurt her?"

He didn't say anything, but simply stared at her. She knew enough.

"Charlie..."

She shook her head and stood, intending to see if her mother was okay. Miles had brought something to her attention and it would be hard for her to forget. She wanted to know what happened, why Miles had left and what he'd done to her mother.

"Stop."

"Shut up Miles. When the power went off you did everything in your power to get _power_ simply because you could. You took over a part of the world and now you regret it...but you don't get off that easy. You fucked up, Miles."

"I wasn't like that, Charlie."

"I don't care," She gritted out. She slowly made her way to the tent, fearing what she'd find. When she heard the sob, she hesitated, but she also knew her mother needed some comfort. She wished she wouldn't be the one to give it to her, but she wanted her mother to know that there was nothing in the world stopping her from helping her, no matter her feelings.

"Mom?"

"Charlie," Rachel turned toward her and Charlie sat down next to her on the cold ground. "What are you doing here?"

Charlie thought that was a weird question, considering. But she sighed and shook her head, knowing that she didn't ask because she wanted to know.

"I thought that..." Charlie forewent all the talk and just hugged her mother, tightly. She felt the tremble, and she wished she could take some of that pain. "I missed you." It was the first time she'd given in to her feelings, and she knew it did more to comfort her mother than any other words she could say.

"I missed you too," Rachel whispered, the surprise in her voice making Charlie smile.

"When you didn't come back we thought you were dead and when Danny got taken...I thought that I'd die. I'd lost every single one of my family and I wanted them back. I never thought that I would find Danny _and _you."

"But you did."

For a moment there wasn't anything but a pressing silence. It was pressing on Charlie's insides and she tried to break the silence twice before she finally could speak past the lump in her throat.

"I did."

"You saved Danny...and you saved me...I..." Rachel shook her head, and smiled softly, something Charlie had wanted to see from her mother for the longest time. "I'm so proud of you, Charlie. You were so strong, and I know you went through horrible stuff to make sure you're brother was safe and I..."

"Nothing can take back those years," Charlie said, looking into her mother's eyes. "Nothing can take back the pain that you had to go through, or the pain that Danny and I went through. But we can make up for that, as long as we can stick together."

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing that didn't happen to you," Charlie said quickly. For a moment she contemplated telling her mother everything but then she realized that it didn't matter anymore. Her pain didn't need to be rehashed because of the information that she had. "I'm okay though, and you're okay and we will get out of this. We will find a way to turn the power back on and win this fight with that bastard."

"I know..."

Charlie watched as the pain made place for pride, for love and most of all, for determination.

They would win the fight.


End file.
